reforming 30-06 brass to 6.5 x 55

[uncle guns]

Hello All


Saw this in another post here........................


"I've posted everything you need to make any rifle shoot good in the past, with not much comment said! The trick is to fill up the neck of the chamber and the throat. Here it is Again: Take a case fired with a full load, remove any vestige of crimp and measure the inside neck diameter of the fired case; that is the size of your boolit that you want. Its nice if the nose will engrave, but NOT necessary. In all the military rifle, you can shoot wheelweights and unique at the top of its burning range for the cartridge with a soft lube. You should be VERY HAPPY with the results. 0.002" slop between the chamber neck and the loaded cartridge diameter won't get you much of anything. If your boolit isn't that big, you will have to reform some brass so you can get a thicker neck to take up the slop. The 6.5x55 brass put out is too small in the neck wall thickness to use. I've been reforming 30-06 brass to 6.5 x 55 and turning the necks for fit for the last 25 years. Its about the only way to get these kind of groups in the 6.5 x 55"............

45 2.1
is the one who wrote it, so at the risk of sounding stupid ...... I didnt know you could reform 06 brass to 6.5x55... whats involved in doing this? isnt it cheaper to buy virgin brass? I know that was not the scope of that post but I am always looking for the cheap tricks way of reloading.

I am not new to reloading or casting but I am new to casting for rifles and finding good C-B loads for my milsurps is somtimes a real challenge......

For now I am casting for M-N m39,,, Yugo m48,,,smle no1mk3,,,03 &03a3 SF,,, swiss K31,,,,,,...... and I just bought an m96 swede,,,,,,

sadly all my best loads are all J-B loads, I love the whole C-B thing but am having a tough time finding very accurate loads, I have a chrono and will try about any load, I just need more info on loads, I realy like this board, about the only other way to get any info is to talk to a local guy at my gun club, he has posted here a few times and imho is pretty smart about C-B.....

sorry bout the longish post,but I just love this hobby, and so far I seem to learn somthing new every day, best of all I got my 80yo Dad back into shooting, and we are having the best of times together since we are working on loads and shooting together.........


regards U.G.

[Buckshot]

".............I've been reforming 30-06 brass to 6.5 x 55 and turning the necks for fit for the last 25 years."

(quote)..................45 2.1 is the one who wrote it, so at the risk of sounding stupid ...... I didnt know you could reform 06 brass to 6.5x55... whats involved in doing this? isnt it cheaper to buy virgin brass? I know that was not the scope of that post but I am always looking for the cheap tricks way of reloading. (end quote)

What 45 2.1 was doing was to get the minimum clearances possible between chamber neck, and case neck so as to allow maximum boolit OD to truly fit the throat in the barrel.

I've never felt the need to reform 30-06 into 6.5x55 brass. I've always used 6.5x55 headstamped brass with the first being 300 truly excellent CBC (Brazilian) brass from Century Arms maybe 12 years ago (and I still have some left), Norma, PMC, and R-P brass. While some may argue the 'Mauser" size .473" head size of the American made 6.5x55 brass vs the REAL OD of ~ .480", I've found it to be a non-issue. I've loaded the R-P brass to full military velocities for several loadings without a problem.

The caseneck issue has to do with overly generous chamber neck diameters in relation to the throat. Since these (speaking of the Swede's) were military rifles that is to be expected. The object then is to size down a larger case in order to have the thicker necks take up the windage. Assuming the ID of the new thicker caseneck is concentric with the throat, the cast boolit then is more perfectly guided.

The principle if not the execution is common in benchrest competition shooting.

I have sized down and trimmed many 8x57 cases to form 7.65x53 brass. It's easily done with new 8mm or annealed 8mm. However you're reducing the casenecks a small amount (.323" to .314") vs the .308" to .264". The previous is only .009" while the later is .044". Quite a bit of difference. I would suspect the best way would be to go from 308 to 7mm (.284), then .277 and finally the 264. Then again maybe one or even no intermediate step.

I've made 8x57 brass from 30-06 and that was simply a one step job as it's opening up, and a .015" hop.

A limitation for me is my eyesight and the fact that my rifles all wear thier issue iron sights and still sport thier issue triggers. Thus set up, I consider any 5 shot 50 yard group consistantly round or 'groupish' to be accepatable. At 100 yards a 2-2.5" group is just fine with me.

.....................Buckshot

[45 2.1]

Just 12 years ago Buckshot? There was a time when the rifles were everywhere, but ammo was $1 a shot Norma. Before that time there was only berdan primed surplus if you could find any. I started reforming 30-06 cases in the 70's so I could shoot the Swedes. I continue to do so for the case fit I can get in lue of the sloppy brass we get now or before. Forming involves setting the shoulder back in a 308 die, forming and cutoff in a 7x57 trim die, then final sizing in a 6.5x55 full length die and trimming, then neck turning. Its a little onery, but the results are worth it to me, especially when the other forum members say it won't shoot above a certain velocity. Been there and done that, there are other 6.5 calibers that are much harder to get results from.

[Cayoot]

I've made 8x57 brass from 30-06 and that was simply a one step job as it's opening up, and a .015" hop.
.....................Buckshot

Ok Buckshot....stop being such a tease!!! Please tell me how I could change my piles of cheap 30-06 brass into something that I can shoot through my 8 mm mauser!

This would be great for me to learn since:
1 . 8 mm brass is expensive
2. I don't seem to be that bright cuz I can't figgure it out for myself! :veryconfu :veryconfu

[StarMetal]

Cayoot

First start with clean brass. I'd go ahead and anneal the neck/shoulder area. All you need is an 8mm sizer die, full length. You can size it to 8mm in one pass and I don't think that you have to expand the neck up first, I didn't do that on mine. Don't put lube on the neck/shoulder area or you'll get back wrinkle creases in the neck. Best to size the 06 in an 06 full length sizer first too. Okay now that you have them sized to 8mm just trim them to the right length in your trimmer. Don't forget to deburr both the inside and outside of the mouth. That's all there is too it. 8mm from 06 is an easy one. Oh yeah one more thing, make sure you lube the inside of the neck, making pulling out of the sizer die alot easier.

Joe

[Cayoot]

Thanks Joe!!!

That's Fabulous! :bigsmyl2:

[Maven]

All, There are two other ways of reforming '06 -> 6.5 x 55mm and '06 -> 8 x 57mm. In either instance you can use a form die (available from RCBS), which you can sometimes find as a used or surplus item. These work beautifully and without any appreciable loss of parent cartridges so long as you're careful about not lubing above the shoulder of the '06 case. With the 8 x 57mm, you can also use the 8mm Mau. FL die, but not in one pass. First use a razor- (hobby shop item) or hack saw to cut the case neck off and lube the inside of the case, but not the shoulder. Then screw the die down so the expander ball barely enters the case mouth. Lower the ram and screw the FL die in another 1/4 turn, raise the ram then withdraw the case and screw the die in 1/4 turn more. Keep doing this until the case touches the shellholder and the press cams over; i.e., until you've FL sized and reformed the '06 brass. If you've been careful with the case lube, i.e., keeping it below the case shoulder, you should have no lube dents on the new shoulder and neck. You'll need to trim the newly formed cases to ~.001" - .002" over max. case length as they'll "shrink" when fireformed. The last step is to anneal the newly formed cases. I've tried annealing first,but too many collapsed shoulders convinced me to do so afterwards.

[Blackwater]

Do you guys anneal the necks after forming? Just curious, because I find that really helps when I make .30 Herrets from .30/30's and .256 WM's from .357's. Cases last a lot longer for me with these, but those are a whole 'nother ball game requiring a lot more forming and neck reduction in the case of the little .256.

[felix]

I would anneal up front before any radical sizing. Probably won't anneal again until the brass is broken in, say after 5 shots. When doing heavy cases like the 3006, make sure the neck is thin enough by loading a dummy and checking with magic marker. ... felix

[bruce drake]

And easy way to cut 30-06 cases down to 8mm (or 7.7 Jap, 7mm, .257 Roberts, 6mm Remington, etc) is to mark the cases at the proper length ( or a little more for fudge factors) and then put a small pipe cutter on the case. A couple of twists and the case is cut to the length you want. A quick twist with chamfering tool on the pipe cutter or a LEE chamfer tool and the cartridge is ready for resizing and final trim (I use the LEE trimmer and cartridge length guages in an 18v cordless screwdriver) and fireforming. Been using this method for a few years now with good success. ;-)

Bruce

[StarMetal]

I'm wondering if you anneal them first if the pipe cutter will crush them because they are fairly soft after annealing?

Joe

[bruce drake]

Joe,

Learn the painful way that annealing can make your brass dead soft. Lost a good batch of 7.7 Jap brass (Norma) that way. Annealed 50 in my lead pot and then when to put some j**kted bullets into the cases and the necks collapsed as the bulelts were being seated.

Not to hijack the thread but I've never reformed to 6.5x5 from 30-06 but wouldn't European brass (Norma, Prvi Partisan, etc) be more in spec with the chambering than Amreican cases which use the same parent .473 diameter cases

[45 2.1]

Having reformed many calibers, I will note that the difference in base sizes is not that critical if you don't load too heavy. If your going to shoot full loads, I would find the proper brass with the proper base size. Smaller base sizes allow the cartridge to lay in the chamber lopsided and will expand the case to one side more than the other. You will find that these lopsided cases will give off and on accuracy depending on how they are oriented. I always use military 30-06 brass for refgorming to 6.5x55 and it takes several shots for it to expand to chamber size with even expansion. Commercial brass will bulge more. This is a problem with the 7.7 Jap also.

When reforming brass, you need to use a good lubricant and not get any on the neck/shoulder area of the case. You will get lube dents from this and they will not blow out! Either size the neck down or move the shoulder back, not both at once as too much of either will ruin the case. You will lose a few cases while reforming, but proper methodology will lose a very few. You can get by without initial annealing, but you will need to anneal the neck/shoulder area in a few reloads or before you form a bunch and put them in storage.

[Maven]

All, As it was too rainy to even contemplate a trip to the range today, I decided to reform a Win. once-fired .30-06 case to 6.5 x 55mm using a Redding form die and a hacksaw to remove the resulting too-long neck. I didn't anneal the case prior to reforming, but in retrospect, a bit of softening would have been better as I got stress lines (parallel to the case sides) on one side of the new shoulder. More importantly, the neck is now too thick to chamber in my rifle, but I expected this, having tried reforming in the past. Here are some neck and base measurements for the reformed Win. '06 case v. a new Win. 6.5 x 55mm case run over the expander button of my Hornady "New Dimension" FL die:

Reformed '06 Case Neck = .3035" base = .4695"

Win. 6.5 x 55 Case Neck = .2935" base = .4755"


Simple subtraction shows the reformed neck is .0100" larger than that of the widely available Win. 6.5 brass. If I had a neck turner, I suppose I could custom fit such necks to my rifle's chamber, but I'm not sure the gains would justify the investment of both my $$ and time. As it stands, the "as issued" rifle will shoot into 2 m.o.a. or less with the Lee 6.5 "Kurtz" and a LBT spire point. Btw, the Win. 6.5 x 55mm brass varies a bit in base diameter (up to .4785" in the lot that I have), making it necessary to use a shellholder for the 6.5 Swede rather than one for the .30-06/.473" family of cartridges.

[Maven]

If you're going to reform .30-06 brass -> 6.5 x 55mm, annealing the case necks definitely improves things. Just be careful not to over-anneal and make sure to keep the case lube below where the new neck and shoulder will be when reforming. Btw, the very thick necks need to be reduced to fit the mil. chamber (am awaiting a trimmer pilot to do so), but I may have to remove so much as to render the brass useless. I intend to proceed gradually and will report progress and problems as they turn up.

[45 2.1]

If you're going to reform .30-06 brass -> 6.5 x 55mm, annealing the case necks definitely improves things. Just be careful not to over-anneal and make sure to keep the case lube below where the new neck and shoulder will be when reforming. Btw, the very thick necks need to be reduced to fit the mil. chamber (am awaiting a trimmer pilot to do so), but I may have to remove so much as to render the brass useless. I intend to proceed gradually and will report progress and problems as they turn up.

You can expect to turn to a 0.011" to 0.012" neck wall or a little more with 0.268" bullets with no difficultly. Depending on your boolit size, I would try for a tight neck situation.

[Maven]

All, The neck turning pilot arrived this afternoon and shortly thereafter I tried to turn the .30-06 -> 6.5 x 55mm necks: Bad idea as the necks were too thick to accept the .264" pilot/mandrel (Forster). After several attempts and a stuck pilot (Twice. You'd think once would be enough!), I decided to inside ream the necks and then turn them to the same diameter as a new 6.5 x 55mm Win. cartridge. I was able to match the neck diameters exactly, but they wouldn't chamber in my rifle. (I've experienced this before with reformed '06 brass in this rifle.) I had to literally pound the bolt closed (and open) with a nylon hammer (what I use to shear sprues when casting). That's not a good thing! The problem wasn't the necks, but the shoulders, which weren't set back far enough even with annealing and trips through both forming and FL dies. I thought this would be a nice means of using the '06 brass that I've accumulated, but it didn't work for me at all (Bummer!). Btw, '06 brass works just fine when reforming both the 7.65 x 53mm and 8 x 57mm, but you need to anneal afterward rather than before and check for the "dreaded doughnut" after 1 - 3 firings.

[Frank46]

Maven, speaking of 7.65x53 argentine mauser cases. I have a small stash of israeli 8mm cases dated '54-55. I have whittled the lot down to about 180 out of 600. They were resized and I used a neck reamer in a foster case trimmer to thin out the necks to take .311 condoms. Maybe I got lucky with these cases as I never had to anneal them. But since these cases are now over 50 years old(I don't throw anything away) annealing may be the way to go now. I saw an article about using 375 win cases sized down to 30-30 cases. This in effect would give you a thicker case for the 30-30. I tried this with a 30-30 form and trim die that I picked up years ago off a gun shop bargain table. Left the cases their origional length and after resizing trimmed them in a wilson trimmer. No losses. My win 94 has a generous chamber but factory ammo shows marks on the case mouth after firing so maybe the headspace is "right there". The 94 is a canadian centennial carbine, sure wish I had the the money at the time to get its sister the 24" bbld rifle, but in the end the carbine went home with me. Frank

[Four Fingers of Death]

You could re-chamber to 8mm-06 by running an 06' reamer through it.Apparently a very useful round and there is reloading data in my Speer manual (No10).

[Four Fingers of Death]

I've never used a 6.5. I've owned a couple that I picked up in trades, but I couldn't get excited about them and passed them on. I'm very well set up for 308/7.62, 30-06 and 303 Brit, as well as a squillion other calibres, so I couldn't get up enough commitment to kick on with one. If they had peep sights, I'd be shooting one now, not to mention the Swiss straight pull rifles.

One thing I found when reloading a friends 6.5 was that I needed to buy a special shellholder for the press and lee auto prime because the rim was bigger. Obviously the rifle will pick up the smaller rims, but the shellholders that I had would not entertain the 6.5 rim.

[geargnasher]

Reform .308 to 7.65x53 Arg. ? I saw this somewhere but can't find it. I need more 7.65 brass quick, I decided to use it in a match and don't have time to order new. Any idea? Thanks. What about .243?

Wow, time traveling again! I think you may be long waiting on an answer, the last post on this thread was four years ago!

Gear

[dualsport]

Thanks.

[flounderman]

the 308 case would probably chamber and fireform, but unless it stretches, it's going to be a little short. you could seat the bullet out so it headspaces and use a light load to fireform, but you will probably end up with a short neck case.

[bart55]

I just tried it by sizeing some of the 308 to the argentine and they do seem a little short I am going to load some light and fire form , I think they will work

[Four Fingers of Death]

As far as I'm concerned, reforming brass has never been a happy experience. Try and pick up some Privi Partisan, they make brass in all shapes and sizes. I bought some 8mmLebel and some 6.5Jap straight off the shelf the other day.

[kendwell]

During late 60's, I resized a lot of '06 brass to 6.5. Seems I recall there is a difference between SAAMI spec and Swedish Specs, for some reason?

[dbldblu]

Re reforming 30-06 to 8mm

I set out to do this the other day since I have bunches of '06 brass. I tried running one into my Lee full length die but it would not go. This die will not accept the length of the '06 case. I also have Lyman 7.65x53 dies and I knew they would accept the '06 cases. I used a spacer to back off the 7.65 die far enough to leave the length to shoulder longer than needed in the 8mm. Next I trimmed them in my mini lathe. Then they would fit in the 8mm FL die. I have 3 8mm rifles and wanted to see how much they differed headspace wise. I turned the FL die in a little at a time and tried the case in the 3 rifles. When the bolt would close on the tightest of the rifles was only .003" more than the loosest. I can use the same die setting for all three. Sometimes you get lucky.

[Zim]

Most of my 7.65x53 Brass sports 8mm x 57 on the headstamps. The 30-06 (7.62x63) has thicker walls and as you read above, generally benefits from neck turning. The 308 family (7.62x51) is a little short for the Argie and most of the Mauser line.

I've also been told that it is easier to size down rather than up once you find a close length, i.e. 8 mm to 7.65 mm, 7mm to 6.5, and of course 308 to 7mm.

Having said that, I have some 7mmx57 that will become 6.5x54 Swede shortly. Little length trimming after forming and all is well. Mind the warnings about just enough lubricant. Too much means wrinkles. Too little means stuck case.

I also shoot .30 Herret (shortened 30-30) and was told you can make 44 shorts out of 45 ACP brass. I need to tell my darling bride that I need a bigger press for that one. (Warning, DO NOT use carbide dies for this little trick.) Did I mention that you can break your dies doing case forming? Specifically the case heads that are solid brass.

I also recieved a .243 forming die (with case already stuck) for the cost of "if you can get it out, tell me how you did it". I soaked it in WD-40 overnight and slid the case and what was left of the decapping rod right out.

[mike in co]

just some numbers..

unfired lapua 6.5 x55 0.4765

unfired norma 6.5 x 55 0.476

fired lapua is 0.477

[Molly]

Having reformed many calibers, I will note that the difference in base sizes is not that critical if you don't load too heavy. If your going to shoot full loads, I would find the proper brass with the proper base size. Smaller base sizes allow the cartridge to lay in the chamber lopsided and will expand the case to one side more than the other. You will find that these lopsided cases will give off and on accuracy depending on how they are oriented. I always use military 30-06 brass for refgorming to 6.5x55 and it takes several shots for it to expand to chamber size with even expansion. Commercial brass will bulge more. This is a problem with the 7.7 Jap also.

Hi 45 2.1,

And olt trick that works very well is to simply wrap the base of the reformed case with cellophane tape until it's as big as the chamber. This centers the base of the case in the chamber quite well, and essentially eliminates any chance for the case to split at the head due to being undersized. We used to use it as standard practice when reforming 7.7 Jap or 6.5x55. After fireforming, the tape can be removed, as the rest of the case will now keep it centered for a final shot to expand the rrest of the case. This gives you the advantage of more uniform brass expansion, which is why they so seldom split. One word of caution though: These cases will have significantly less capacity that 'proper' cases, but as long as your reloads are even half-way reasonable, it works fine.

Another trick, somewhat similar, is to go to a hobby shop and find seamless brass tubing (called telescoping tubing) that will just not quite go over the body of a rimmed case. Saw off a length a trifle longer than the case web, and push it down to the rim. Again, the hollow body of the case will expand, while the reinforcement of the head will prevent splitting. This will enable you to make a lot of usable cases from ordinary brass for guns that simply don't have ammo available - or at least don't have reloadable brass easily available. It's astonishing some of the things that you can put together.